


Do You Remember?

by Loneredballoon



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Multi, OT7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loneredballoon/pseuds/Loneredballoon
Summary: This is a Christmas present for mugsandpugs!Merry Christmas, Lyn!Fluffy OT7 on sweet Mike Hanlon's birthday. I might have teared up writing this. I hope you like it.





	Do You Remember?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mugsandpugs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/gifts).



**_September 21, 1994_ **

At the Hanlon Farm, off the outskirts of Witcham street, _in the sticks_ , as the locals would call it; Michael Hanlon stood on his porch. It creaked as he shifted from foot-to-foot, hands jammed into the pockets of his corduroys. From inside, the smell of roasted potatoes and leaks permeated deep into every crevice. The rosemary and thyme were fragrant and enticing.

It was the 21st of September, and Mike would be 18 years old in the next 20 minutes.

 _“6:30 on the dot.”_ His mother, Jessica had told him when he was still knee high to a pig’s eye. He sat on the floor, head between her knees as she rubbed the top of his scalp with her long elegant fingers. She smelled like spiced peaches and Comet from work. _“I took a deep breath, said the Lord’s Prayer, and there you were; all seven pounds of you. My beautiful boy.”_

He smiled broadly at the memory, and sniffed hard. He looked down to his boots, which were clotted with Earth and turned the color of sun-dried clay. The chickens were clucking around the coop by the barn, and Mike made a mental note to bed them down in an hour or so. He’d be damned if the foxes took one more hen.

From inside the house, came the most beautiful sound Mike could ever hope to hear. It was almost like a laugh track on a sitcom, the sound was so sudden, perfectly timed and buzzing with love.

His friends. The best friend’s a man could ever hope to have were just beyond that door, bathed in warmth and entertaining his mother after a long day of cooking and mussing over the state of the living room.

“Mrs. Hanlon, do ya mind if I…?”

“Of course not, sweetheart. That old thing needs dusting off.”

Richie Tozier crowed happily from inside, saying something along the lines of…' _something something…Earth, Wind, & Fire…something something', “Oh man, this is perfect!”_

A wonderfully funky disco riff flowed from the old, almost forgotten record player. It had belonged to Will and Mike made a silent prayer that his father was looking down on them, smiling, wishing his son a Happy Birthday.

 _‘He’s right here with me, Michael. He loves you so much, he wants you to know that.’_ He imagined the voice of the turtle saying softly in his ear. _‘Now go on inside…they are all here for you.’_

One final look out over his property, at the life teeming there, hunkering down to sleep away the coming winter…

He cracked his knuckles and swung open the squeaky screen door, allowing the aroma of his dinner to drift pleasantly into his nostrils.

_Do you remember the_

_21st night of September?_

_Love was changing the minds of pretenders_

_While chasing the clouds away_

The scene before him would surely stay in his mind for as long as he lived, for as long as his mind provided coherence for it.

There they were, all of his best and most treasured friends, _Lucky Seven_ together again, just for one night before Beverly made the two-hour trip back to Portland in time for school.

The way the atmosphere pulsed around them, it was like no other feeling he had experienced. They weren’t just seven kids, trying hard to keep their heads above water, but one being, made up of seven integral parts.

Mike fit comfortably into his role of The Memory. He thought briefly of the notebooks upstairs. They were in a neat stack on his bedside table, next to the glass where he kept his water. Nightmares woke him every night and he had to fight to record it all before unconsciousness took him back to the blackness of his brain. He wouldn’t share these stories with his friends. Not yet. _Not yet, Michael._ The turtle instructed.

An abrupt giggle escaped Jessica from the middle of the room.

His mother was spinning around happily in the arms of Richie Tozier, who was trying his best to mimic dance moves he had seen in Saturday Night Fever. 

If Mike was The Memory, then Richie was The Heart: so full of life, pumping with chaotic energy and love. Richie had room enough in his heart for all of them, and loved so intensely, and so urgently it was as if he would burst at the seams if he didn’t express this at every opportunity. He brought humor, and relief.

 _I love you._ Mike thought to himself, wandering over and tapping his friend on the shoulder. Grinning like a jack-o-lantern, Richie turned summery blue eyes to meet Mike’s.

“Mind if I cut in?” Mike asked, taking his mother’s hand in his and placing his other on Richie’s shoulder. He was the only Loser to meet the lanky boy’s height.

“Course not, Mikey Boy! She’s got some moves, I can barely keep up.”

Jessica laughed, and it sounded like a song.

They danced there together and Mike took in the rest of his friends, piled together on every chair and couch they could fit on. 

_Our hearts were ringing_

_In the key that our souls were singing._

_As we danced in the night,_

_Remember how the stars stole the night away_

Bill was there. Bill was The Courage. His fiery hair glowed under the Tiffany lamp and he snapped his fingers along with the beat, his foot mimicking the motions. When he smiled, he showed all of his teeth. He was lion-hearted and brave, headstrong; the leader. Not one person had any qualms in appointing that title to Bill. It only made sense. He would easily lay his life on the line for any one of them and it showed.

 _I love you._ Mike thought. 

“No, no, no, Richie!” Eddie shrieked as the cackling man hoisted him to his feet in a bear hug.

“Yes, yes, yes, Eddie!” He mimicked Eddie’s shrill, playful cry and laughed, hooking the smaller man’s legs around his waist and spinning them in lazy circles. Richie set him back on the floor and Mike grinned along as he watched Eddie dance. He looked like he was pretending to be embarrassed, but Mike knew better. 

Eddie was The Direction, forever pointing the Losers the right way. Behind those hazel-gray and frantic eyes were passages, highways, and less-traveled dusty back roads. In the literal and figurative sense, if you didn’t know which way to turn, Eddie Kaspbrak did, and he was more than happy to gently place you back on the right track.

 _I love you._ Mike mused, laughing as Eddie pulled Stanley to his feet and pushed the sober man into Richie’s arms.

“If I have to, then so do you.” He explained as Stan rolled his eyes, trying his damndest to seem uninterested, and unruffled.

“Yeah, Stanny. Shake ya tail-feathers!” Richie crowed, dipping the man low to the floor and ruffling his perfect short black hair.

“I’m gonna shake _you_ in a minute.” Stan warned, smiling anyway, a glint in his eyes. 

_Say do you remember_

_Dancing in September_

_Never was a cloudy day_

Stan arranged his and Richie’s limbs into a sort of Foxtrot formation, calming the crazed man into slow methodical dance steps. That was Stanley all over. The Order: the only mandate in an otherwise chaotic world. Everything had a place, and definitive beginning and end in his eyes. On the rare occasions he let himself go, he pulled himself back together just as quickly, not allowing himself to live in a fantasy for more than necessary.

_I love you._

Mike let go of his mother and kissed her on the cheek after she said she was going to check on dinner.

“Do you need any help?” Ben offered, already half-raised out of his seat. Jessica offered a warm look his way and nodded.

“You can absolutely help me set the table.”

Ben smiled at her and stretched as he stood, patting Mike on the shoulder firmly as he made his way into the kitchen on Jessica’s heels.

Ah, Benjamin Haystack Hanscom. One could see from looking at his rugged frame and weather beaten face that he was destined for great things. He had transformed into the handsome man hiding inside his equally handsome child’s body. Inside him beat the heart of a poet, and soft, but perpetually graphite smudge hands were capable of creating beauty, structure, and grace. He was The Creator. He had a quick mind, quick hands, and even quicker feet. The ball bearings…he made them with those hands. He saved them all from certain death with those hands and poet’s heart.

 _I love you._ Mike sighed reflectively, turning his focus back to the others. 

“This is how you do it, boys!” Beverly exclaimed, hopping to her feet and spinning gracefully in a way that reminded him of one of those music boxes with the ballerina spinning on her pedestal.

Her coppery, shoulder length hair bounced around her face and her freckled cheeks and nose wrinkled into a grin as she took Stan and Richie’s hands in her own. Bill and Eddie sat together on the couch, Eddie’s slim legs propped on Bill lap as they clapped along to the music, laughing heartily while Beverly spun them in a circle. Stan was teaching them the mechanics of The Hora. 

_My thoughts are with you_

_Holding hands with your heart to see you_

_Only blue talk and love,_

_Remember how we knew love was here to stay_

Beverly’s passionate energy seemed to flow through all of them. Ben stood propped against the dining room doorway, the present look of love and adoration in his eyes and Mike could understand why. They all could. Beverly was The Warrior, the way home. She was the glue that bonded them all. She had more fight and moxie in her than the lot of the men combined. She was tougher than any man, and more beautiful than any woman each of them had ever seen, and oh, how he wished she could stay. 

 _I love you._ Mike repeated in his head for the final time that night. 

“Dinner’s ready, everyone!” Jessica called from the kitchen, ever the exuberant host, she waited for all of her guests to be seated, plates piled high with food before sitting down herself.

They all sat around the cozy wooded table and chatted animatedly to one another. No topic of conversation was meant for just one or two, but rather engaged them all. It was senior year, and soon they would all be leaving. Mike knew this, but he also knew they would never leave. _Not really, anyway._

They would always be in his heart, no matter how near or far. 

Instead of a cake, his mother had prepared a pecan pie with one white candle stuck in the vent hole at the very center. Mike leaned back in his chair and basked in the love, the adoration, the utter joy of his soulmates, singing…

 _“Happy Birthday, dear Mikey! Happy birthday to you!”_  

 _I wish for their happiness and success. That’s all I ever want for them._ Mike thought, pleading almost that the turtle could be responsible for such things like birthday wishes.

“I love you all.” Mike said finally, looking to each of their faces. The Courage, The Heart, The Direction, The Order, The Creator, and The Way Home…

If they ever did forget, Mike would keep those memories for them. Memories like this…for as long as his mind would allow…

“I love you all so much.”

* * *

 


End file.
